Heterogeneous computing on a system-on-chip, including machine learning inference

ABSTRACT

A system-on-chip (SoC) integrated circuit product includes a machine learning accelerator (MLA). It also includes other processor cores, such as general purpose processors and application-specific processors. It also includes a network-on-chip for communication between the different modules. The SoC implements a heterogeneous compute environment because the processor cores are customized for different purposes and typically will use different instruction sets. Applications may use some or all of the functionalities offered by the processor cores, and the processor cores may be programmed into different pipelines to perform different tasks.

BACKGROUND 1. Technical Field

This disclosure relates generally to the implementation of machine learning networks on hardware.

2. Description of Related Art

An embedded system is a combination of hardware and software that is built to perform specific defined tasks. Embedded systems typically are part of a larger device—they are “embedded” in the larger device. For example, cameras may be used to capture images. An embedded system in the camera may control the capture of images and/or the subsequent processing of those images.

Many embedded systems may be part of edge devices. In edge computing, computation and data storage are performed closer to the edge of the network, where data is originally captured or ultimately consumed. Edge computing helps to reduce latency, network bandwidth and infrastructure costs. In the camera example, computing performed at the camera, rather than at a remote cloud-based location, eliminates the need to transfer data between the camera and the cloud location.

Machine learning is one of the most powerful recent trends in technology. In machine learning, a model is developed to perform a certain task. The model, which will be referred to as a machine learning network, is trained and deployed in order to carry out that task. For example, a model may be developed to recognize the presence of objects within images captured by a set of cameras. Once the model is deployed, images captured by the cameras are input to the machine learning network, which then infers whether (or to what confidence level) objects are present within the images.

Many embedded systems may benefit from machine learning. However, machine learning inference typically requires the handling of a large volume of data and the execution of a large number of computations. As a result, they are commonly implemented in compute facilities with access to significant resources, such as in the cloud or on server clusters. However, as noted previously, this can increase latency, required network bandwidth and overall costs.

Machine learning may be attempted in embedded systems. However, most embedded systems use general purposes processors in order to have the flexibility to perform many different types of tasks. Executing machine learning networks on a general purpose processor can be slow and inefficient. Some companies have developed specialty chips optimized for machine learning, such as for use in server farms. However, edge devices often are cost sensitive and cannot afford to have a separate chip dedicated just to machine learning inference.

Therefore, there is a need for better approaches to implement machine learning inference in embedded systems and in edge devices.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the disclosure have other advantages and features which will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description and the appended claims, when taken in conjunction with the examples in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of a system-on-chip (SoC) integrated circuit product that implements a heterogeneous compute environment including a machine learning accelerator (MLA).

FIG. 1B is a flow diagram of a software development process for the SoC.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of data flow through an SoC that performs a task using a pipeline of operations.

FIG. 3A is a block diagram of a system with a machine learning accelerator (MLA) and corresponding compiler.

FIG. 3B illustrates partitioning a computer program into deterministic and non-deterministic phases.

FIG. 4A is a block diagram of a hardware system, including an MLA.

FIG. 4B is a block diagram of a Tile within an MLA.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a software development environment, including an ML compiler.

FIG. 6A illustrates an implementation of an MLN subnet utilizing a low number of Tiles.

FIG. 6B illustrates an implementation of an MLN subnet with low latency.

FIG. 6C illustrates an implementation of an MLN subnet with high throughput.

FIG. 7A illustrates partitioning a mesh of Tiles to execute different subnets.

FIG. 7B illustrates deterministic and non-deterministic phases for different partitions.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The figures and the following description relate to preferred embodiments by way of illustration only. It should be noted that from the following discussion, alternative embodiments of the structures and methods disclosed herein will be readily recognized as viable alternatives that may be employed without departing from the principles of what is claimed.

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of a system-on-chip (SoC) integrated circuit product that implements a heterogeneous compute environment that includes a machine learning accelerator (MLA) 114. All of the components shown in FIG. 1A are implemented on a single die. This example includes the following additional modules: real time processor(s) 110, application processor(s) 111 (e.g., general purpose CPU running applications), computer vision processor(s) 112 (or other types of application-specific processors), safety module 115, security module 116, memory 120 and input/output modules 122. It also includes a network 130 for communication between the different modules.

The connections to the external world include camera inputs 140 (and/or inputs for other sensor data), ports for debug 142 and configuration 144, connections 146 to external memory (e.g., DRAM), chip-to-chip connections 148, and network connections 149 such as Ethernet, PCIe (PCI Express), CAN (controller area network), I2C, and GPIO (general purpose input/output).

The real time processors 110, application processors 111, computer vision processors 112 and MLA 114 are examples of different types of processor cores. These processor cores execute instructions, but different types of processor cores are optimized for different purposes.

Application processors 111 are general purpose processors used to run applications. They typically are responsible for the primary processing of an application in the embedded system. Also, the software running on these processors is typically responsible for the distribution of the application workload to other processor cores. It may also do some general bookkeeping and monitoring of the health of the SoC. Real time processors 110 may also perform some of these tasks, but real time processors are optimized for real-time operation and typically have less computing capability than application processors. Examples of application processors include ARM application processors, RISC-V application processors and MIPS cores. The application processors may be multi-core processors. Examples of real time processors include ARM Cortex processors.

Computer vision processor 112 (such as the Synopsys EV6x/7x processor) is an example of an application-specific processor. Application-specific processors are specialized for a particular application domain, function or task. In this example, the processor is specialized for computer vision. It has a vector digital signal processor and is optimized to run embedded vision standards and libraries such as OpenCV, OpenVX and OpenCL. Audio processors and GPUs are other examples of application-specific processors.

The machine learning accelerator 114 is specialized for implementing machine learning applications. It typically will be optimized to handle large volumes of data and to perform computations typical of machine learning networks, such as matrix multiplication. An example of an MLA is described in more detail in FIGS. 3-7 below.

The SoC implements a heterogeneous compute environment because the processor cores 111, 112, 114 are customized for different purposes: general purpose, application-specific and machine learning inference. The different types of processor cores typically will use different instruction sets. The ARM processor uses the ARM instruction set, the Synopsys EV6x/7x processor uses a variant of the ARC instruction set, and the MLA described below uses a proprietary instruction set. End user applications may use some or all of the functionalities provided by the processor cores, and the processor cores may be programmed into different pipelines to perform different tasks.

FIG. 1B is a flow diagram of a software development process for the SoC. The process begins with a description 150 of the task to be performed by the SoC. In this example, the description 150 includes source code 151, 152 for processor cores 111, 112. It also includes a description 154 of the machine learning network (MLN) to be implemented on the MLA 114.

In many cases, edge devices may evolve over time and their code bases will also evolve. It may be desirable for each new generation of device to support legacy code from previous generations. The architecture shown in FIG. 1 facilitates the addition of machine learning inference while still maintaining support for legacy code. The source codes 151, 152 may contain legacy code that can still be executed in the current architecture while adding specialized machine learning inference. As another example, machine learning inference may have been implemented on a non-MLA processor core in a previous generation, and then moved to implementation on the MLA processor core 114 in the current generation.

A compiler 160 generates an executable computer program 170 that implements the overall task on the processor cores. In this example, the compiler has three components, one for each of the instructions sets/processor cores (ignoring the real time processor for now). An ARM compiler 161 (e.g., a gcc compiler) converts the ARM source code 151 into executable code 171 for the ARM processor 111. A CV compiler 162 converts the CV source code 152 into executable code 172 for the CV processor 112. Here, “CV” stands for “computer vision.” A proprietary MLA compiler 164 converts the MLN description 154 into executable code 174 for the MLA 114. The overall computer program 170 include the three components 171, 172, 174.

The coordination of the different processor cores 111, 112, 114 and the execution of the components 171, 172, 174 may be achieved in different ways. In one approach, a main thread provides overall control over the different processor cores, coordinating the transfer of data between processor cores and the execution of code by each processor core. For example, the executable codes 171, 172, 174 may be treated as separate threads that are called or otherwise controlled by the main thread. The main thread itself may run on the application processor 111.

In an alternative approach, the processor cores may have more of a peer-to-peer relationship. Each executable code 171, 172, 174 may be a separate thread executed by one of the processor cores, where overall control of the instruction threads is provided within the instruction threads themselves. For example, the threads may make library calls to the other threads.

In one approach, the application processor code acts as master, with well-coordinated handshakes between the various threads. The application processor code may also perform load balancing based on bandwidth, performance and/or capabilities across the various processor cores. For real time applications, the real time processor will run a real time operating system, and code running on the real time processor may be responsible for the overall scheduling and system coordination.

Completion of the overall end user task requires the execution of many operations. The allocation of operations to processor cores may be inherent in the description 150 of the task. If the description 150 includes three separate components ARM source code 151, CV source code 152 and MLN description 154 and those are directly converted by the compiler to corresponding executable codes 171, 172, 174, then the allocation was already determined in the original description 150.

In some cases, the compiler 160 may allocate which operations are performed by which processor cores. For example, a machine learning network may be described in a standard format, which is implementable on any of the processor cores. The compiler may determine to implement the machine learning network on the MLA. This determination may be made based on increasing throughput, reducing latency and/or reducing power consumption, for example.

As another example, the compiler may allocate operations depending on the type of operation. The compiler may allocate image/vision based functions such as resizing, scaling, and enhancing, to the computer vision processor 112. Machine learning functions, such as inference, classification, and detection, may be allocated to the MLA 114. Functions that are not suitable for the specialized processors may be allocated to the general purpose application processors.

In addition to allocation of operations, the compiler may also optimize the computer program for other goals: power, latency, throughput, accuracy, etc. In some cases, the compiler may generate different versions of a computer program, with different allocations of operations and/or optimized for different purposes. These precompiled codes may be stored in memory. At run-time, one of the processors may dynamically select from the precompiled images based on the current situation.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of data flow through an SoC that performs a task using a pipeline of operations. For convenience, FIG. 2 shows only the processor cores 111, 112, 114 and network-on-chip 130. FIG. 2 also shows an external DRAM 246. The example task is object recognition for surveillance purposes. All data transfer occurs through the network-on-chip 130. ARM processor 111 controls 202 a camera 248 to continuously capture a sequence of images. The captured images are stored 204 in the DRAM 246. The computer vision processor 112 retrieves 206 these images from memory 246 and performs initial processing 208. This may include contrast enhancement, dynamic range enhancement, geometric correction, sensor calibration, edge detection, optical flow, etc. The processed images, data and metadata is stored 210 back to memory. The MLA 114 retrieves 212 the relevant images and other data and applies 214 the machine learning network. The machine learning network performs the task of object recognition. Results, such as labels or confidence levels, are stored 216 to memory. The ARM processor retrieves 218 the results, which may be further used by application code running on the ARM processor.

In this example, data is transferred between processor cores by intermediate storage in the DRAM 246. This is not required. In some cases, the data may bypass the DRAM and transfer directly between processor cores. Other data paths are also possible. For example, the MLA 114 may access the DRAM 246 directly (rather than through the network-on-chip 130) since the MLA may require access to a large volume of data, such as the weights and other parameters of the machine learning network. Other processor cores may also have direct access to the memory. As another example, the SoC may include a network bypass that allows the MLA to receive input images directly, rather than through the network-on-chip 130.

FIG. 2 is one example of a pipeline programmed for a particular task. The SoC may implement different pipelines for different tasks and these may run in parallel on the SoC. In addition, if certain processor cores are not used, they may be powered down or placed into a reduced power mode. There may be multiple power modes, such as standby power mode vs operating mode, low power mode vs full power mode, and low voltage mode vs high voltage mode.

As another example, the computer program and data are loaded into DRAM and then the processors are powered down while waiting for a wake event. The information stored in DRAM would include the compiled MLA code as well as weights for the machine learning network. In this case, the DRAM retains the full application program and it will be faster to bring the SoC out of sleep. Otherwise the weights would need to be fetched from flash memory at a much lower bandwidth.

The availability of different types of software-programmable processor cores on a single SoC provides the flexibility to implement many different tasks in an efficient manner. This allows a single user to implement many tasks on a single chip, rather than requiring additional chips for specialized functions. It also allows the same chip to be used by many different users, thus increasing the volume and reducing the per-unit cost of the chip.

Returning to FIG. 1 , the safety module 115 and security module 116 may also provide additional functions. The safety and security modules are different from the application-level processor cores, because they generally provide services to the SOC rather than run compiled user code. As such, they will be referred to as service modules. The code they run implement an API which the user uses to safely configure the device or securely communicate.

The security module 116 may provide encryption and/or decryption, digital signature capability, and/or management of digital keys. For example, the parameters for the machine learning network may be stored in encrypted form, with the security module 116 decrypting the data for use on the MLA. Encrypted weights may also be viewable by users with the correct privileges. Alternatively, the security module 116 may digitally sign data produced by the SoC. Images, processed images, and meta data may all be digitally signed. The security module 116 may also provide provenance meta data for data produced by the SoC, such as a device stamp identifying the SoC or edge device producing the data, a time stamp for the data and/or a geolocation stamp for the data. Provenance meta data may or may not be encrypted or digitally signed. The security module 116 may also provide stronger protection against tampering. It may be a trusted computing module. It may also include a root of trust; a verified, trusted or secure boot; and/or a PUF (physical unclonable function).

The safety module 116 provides functional safety for the SoC. It controls system level functions to prevent the user from accidentally configuring the system incorrectly. These may include system level power management, clock and reset management. Additionally, it is responsible for managing system level errors and communicating the error state to higher level entities. Certain applications require safe failure modes for components, such as specified by the ASIL (automotive safety integrity level) and ISO 26262 standards. The safety module 116 may provide a range of safety options, including for example fully redundant parallel processing of data.

The SoC described above may be combined with other components to perform various tasks in edge devices and embedded systems. Example applications include automotive and other forms of transportation including autonomous transportation, agricultural, industrial, robotics, drones, surveillance and security, smart environments including smart cities, medical and personalized health. Example tasks include computer vision, image analysis, image understanding, speech recognition, audio analysis, audio understanding, natural language processing, classification and pattern recognition tasks. For edge and embedded applications, it may be desirable to perform certain tasks in real-time.

The following are some example tasks in different application areas:

Automotive applications: Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS L0 “none”, L1 “hands on”, L2 “hands off”, L3 “eyes on”) and Autonomous Driving (L4 “eyes off”, L5 “steering wheel optional”). Uses cases include:

-   -   Multi-camera stitching     -   Object detection     -   Semantic segmentation     -   Object tracking     -   Behavior analysis     -   Point cloud (radar, lidar)     -   Sensor fusion     -   High-Dynamic Range (HDR)     -   LED Flicker Mitigation (LFM)     -   Fog/Haze/Rain/Snow removal

Robotics/Drones applications: Industrial robots, collaborative robots “cobots”, Automated Guided Vehicles “AGV”, Industrial Autonomous Vehicles “IAV”. Use cases include:

-   -   Grasping, positioning     -   Mono and stereo vision     -   3D inspection/reconstruction     -   Defect detection     -   Predictive maintenance     -   For AGV/IAV         -   Lane tracking         -   Barcode reading         -   Collision avoidance         -   Path planning         -   Sensor fusion     -   SLAM and VSLAM

Smart City/Security applications: Store surveillance, airport monitoring, military surveillance. Use cases include:

-   -   Object & human detection     -   Face recognition     -   Human pose     -   Behavior analysis     -   Semantic segmentation     -   Tracking     -   Unwarping, cropping     -   Super-resolution     -   Drones, military (DARPA Mind's Eye, Aerial Dragnet)

Medical applications: Medical imaging, continuous patient monitoring, operational efficiency and performance, clinical decision support, population health management. Use cases include:

-   -   3D reconstruction     -   Path planning     -   Pathology detection     -   Sensor fusion

In addition to memory and other programmable processors, an edge device may also include sensors, such as cameras (both still image and video cameras), microphones, temperature sensors, pressure sensors and other types of sensors. The sensors may capture samples that are used as inputs to a computing pipeline within the edge device. For example, as shown in FIG. 2 , image samples may be used by the computer vision processors 112, which perform initial operations such as edge detection and enhancement, contrast enhancement, motion detection, and optical flow. Raw and/or processed images may be then input to the MLA 114 for analysis by the machine learning network. The MLA may also receive other inputs, such as data from other sources and samples from other sensors. The application processors 111 may also perform various functions in the overall pipeline and may also serve as a master controller that coordinates operation of the MLA and the other programmable processors in the pipeline.

Edge devices may be portable with less power available for computations compared to, for example, cloud-based server farms. It may also be desirable for the computing pipeline within the edge device to perform tasks without utilizing cloud-based or other remote compute resources. In some implementations, the MLA implements computations in the machine learning network at a speed of at least 50 TOPs (50 trillion integer operations per second) at a power consumption of not more than 5 watts. The speed may be increased by increasing the number of Tiles in the mesh or the number of Tile meshes on the die. The SoC may handle at least 1000 HD frames per second at a power consumption of not more than 7 watts.

FIGS. 3-7 describe an example MLA in more detail, such as may be used as the MLA 114 in the SoC of FIG. 1A. FIG. 3A is a block diagram of one example of a system with a machine learning accelerator (MLA) 370 and corresponding compiler 320. The compiler 320 receives a description of a machine learning network 300 (such as MLN description 154 in FIG. 1B) and generates a computer program 350 (such as MLN executable code 174 in FIG. 1B) that implements the machine learning network using MLA 370. The computer program 350 includes instructions that are executed by processing elements (Tiles) in the MLA according to a schedule determined by the compiler. For convenience, these will be referred to as statically scheduled instructions. The instructions executed by the Tiles (Tile instructions) are statically scheduled because the compiler can determine which instructions are executed by which Tiles at what times, as will be explained in greater detail below. For example, for the statically scheduled instructions, there are no conditions, branching or data dependencies that can be resolved only at run-time, and which would affect the timing and order of the execution of the instructions. Note that the static schedule determined by the compiler may or may not be included as part of the instructions and computer program. In some embodiments, the computer program may expressly include the schedule, specifying that instruction A is executed at cycle X, instruction B is executed at cycle X+4, instruction C is executed at cycle X+12, etc. In alternate embodiments, the computer program may specify only that instruction A is executed, followed by instruction B, and then instruction C, but without any scheduling information. Even though the static schedule is not expressly specified, these instructions will still execute according to the schedule determined by the compiler because the compiler knows how long it takes to execute each instruction. As a result of the static scheduling, the MLA and instruction set for the MLA may be simplified, with the complexity offloaded to the compiler. A simpler MLA can result in lower cost, lower power consumption and higher performance, all of which are desirable for implementation in edge devices.

In more detail, the MLN 300 may be described by an architecture and parameters. A depiction of an MLN is shown to the right of box 300 in FIG. 3A. Most MLNs include multiple layers 302, each with one or more nodes which are represented by circles in FIG. 3A. The lines between nodes in FIG. 3A represent interconnections between the nodes (and layers). Each node calculates a weighted sum of the values received from its connected nodes, possibly also applying a bias. Examples are matrix multiplication and convolution. Each node may also apply certain functionality (operators), such as nonlinear functions (e.g., tan h function), softmax operator, etc. A typical node may compute an output: y=F(Σw _(i) x _(i) +b)  (1) where x_(i) are the inputs received from other nodes i, w_(i) are weights, b is a bias and F( ) is a nonlinear operator. The MLN architecture includes the number of nodes (and layers) and their interconnectivity, and the operators applied at nodes. The operators may be described in a parameterized form. The MLN parameters include the weights, biases, and parameters for the operators.

MLNs may vary in size, depending on the desired task. Small MLNs may have 5-10 or fewer layers, medium size MLNs may have 30-50 layers, and large MLNs may have 100 or more layers. Examples of inputs include text, images and video. Some of the layers may be fully interconnected (i.e., every node in one layer provides input to every node in the next layer), and others may be more locally interconnected (e.g., to implement convolutions). Each weighted interconnect represents a scalar multiplication. The total number of scalar multiplications required to implement an MLN may be on the order of millions, billions, tens of billions or even more. These may be carried out by matrix multiplications.

The MLA 370 includes a plurality of Tiles 380 and an on-chip memory system implemented on a semiconductor die. The Tiles are organized into one or more meshes of interconnected Tiles. A depiction of a Tile mesh is shown to the right of box 370 in FIG. 3A. In each mesh, the Tiles 380 are organized in a regular pattern and the interconnections within each mesh provide data transfer paths between Tiles in the mesh. The Tiles execute computations according to instructions received by the Tiles and using data stored in the on-chip memory system. These instructions may be for computations and/or for data transfer. Computations include multiply (including matrix multiply), add, and operators (e.g., nonlinear functions, lookup table, min/max, pooling). These are computations that implement the MLN. In the example of FIG. 3A, the computations performed by layers 302A-D are allocated to groups 382A-D of Tiles as indicated. The allocation is not required to be 1:1. For example, multiple layers could be allocated to a single Tile or vice versa. Not every computation required to implement an MLN need be executed by a Tile; some computation may be executed outside the MLA (e.g., floating point operations, if the Tiles only do integer arithmetic). Tiles typically will at least perform matrix multiplication.

The compiler 320 receives a description of the MLN 300 and generates a computer program 350 that implements the MLN using the MLA 370. The computer program 350 receives an input sample for the MLN and executes the operations of the MLN to produce the output for the MLN. The computer program 350 includes instructions to be executed by the Tiles for implementing computations in the MLN and may also include instructions to be executed by other elements, such as a controller outside the Tiles.

As shown in FIG. 3B, the compiler partitions the Tile instructions into one or more deterministic phases 352A,B,C which typically utilize multiple Tiles. The instructions in a deterministic phase 352 may be statically scheduled by the compiler. For example, a deterministic phase 352 may include a series of computations required to implement a portion of the MLN, where the time required for each computation and associated data transfers is known. As a result, the compiler may statically schedule the Tile instructions within that deterministic phase relative to the other Tile instructions in the phase. The resulting computer program produced by the compiler then implements an allocation of instructions to Tiles and a schedule for executing the instructions as determined by the compiler, although these may not be expressly contained within the computer program. In the example of FIG. 3A, the computations performed by layers 302A-D are allocated to groups 382A-D of Tiles as indicated. In addition, all of the Tile instructions (including both for computation and for data transfer) are executed in a single deterministic phase.

The computer program may also include non-deterministic phases 354X,Y. For example, non-deterministic phases 354 may include data fetch or instruction fetch from off-chip memory where the time required to execute the operation varies too much to allow reliable synchronization with other operations. Other examples include computations that occur off-chip, and conditions, branching and other programmatic constructs that depend on values not known until run-time. The breaks in the rectangles for the non-deterministic phases 354 indicate that the timing is not deterministic, whereas the deterministic phases 352 are represented by rectangles without breaks. In FIG. 3B, the deterministic and non-deterministic phases are shown as alternating. This is not required. For example, deterministic and non-deterministic phases may execute concurrently.

FIG. 3B also shows more detail of deterministic phase 352B, which shows the static schedule computed by the compiler for executing Tile instructions in this phase. The phase 352B begins at some time when all of the Tiles are synchronized, which for convenience is marked as cycle c0 in FIG. 3B. The Tiles may have circuitry that synchronizes the Tiles. For example, each Tile may monitor when it is ready to begin execution of a deterministic phase 352B and then actual execution begins when all Tiles signal that they are ready. Alternatively, an external controller may synchronize the Tiles and start the deterministic phase 352B when all Tiles are ready.

In this example, the instructions are executed by three Tiles, as denoted by T1, T2 and T3. Each Tile has two pipelines: a “D” pipeline for executing data transfer instructions and a “C” pipeline for executing compute instructions. The row labeled T1 D shows instructions executed by the Tile 1 D (data transfer) pipeline, and the row labeled T1 C shows instructions executed by the Tile 1 C (compute) pipeline. For this example, assume that all the data transfer instructions are instructions that load new data into that Tile for consumption by the compute pipeline. The white regions of each row denote the execution of instructions and the hashed regions indicate that the pipeline is idling or executing a NO-OP (no operation).

For Tile 1, instruction 355 a transfers data into Tile 1 and instruction 355 b then performs a computation that consumes that data. Instruction 355 b is dependent on instruction 355 a. Here, the T1 C pipeline is not required to continuously poll the T1 D pipeline at run-time for when the data is available, and run-time message passing between the pipelines is not required to indicate that the data is available. Rather, because the duration (i.e., time required to execute) of instruction 355 a is known, the compiler knows when the data will be available (for convenience, marked as cycle c1 in the figure) and can construct a static schedule in which instruction 355 b starts execution then. The duration of instruction 355 b is also known, so the compiler knows that compute instruction 355 d may start after instruction 355 b. In this case, the compiler determines a static schedule in which instruction 355 d starts at cycle c3. Compute instruction 355 d depends on data brought into the Tile by instruction 355 c. The duration of instruction 355 c is known, so the compiler knows that in the static schedule, instruction 355 c must start at cycle c2 or earlier. This pattern is repeated for pairs of data transfer instructions and compute instructions 355 e-f, 355 g-h, 355 i-j.

For Tile 2, compute instruction 355 l depends on data from data transfer instruction 355 k. However, instruction 355 k does not start immediately at cycle c0. Rather, it has a delayed start at cycle c4. This may be because the data transfer path required by instruction 355 k is occupied by some other data transfer instruction and is not available until cycle c4. The start time of instruction 355 k in the static schedule is not determined by run-time arbitration or contention mechanisms for the shared data transfer path. Rather, the compiler knows that the data transfer path is occupied since the compiler knows the start times and durations of all the instructions, so the compiler simply creates a static schedule in which instruction 355 k does not start until cycle c4 when the compiler knows the data transfer path will be available. Similarly, data transfer instruction 355 m has a delayed start time. Perhaps the T2 D pipeline is being used to transfer out the results of computation 355 l and does not become available until cycle c5.

For Tile 3, computation 355 n starts immediately at cycle c0. Perhaps the required data was loaded into Tile 3 during some prior phase. Data transfer instructions 355 o and 355 p load data for compute instruction 355 q. They are separated in time, perhaps because different pieces of data were not available or the data transfer paths were not available until those times. As a final example, data transfer instruction 355 r loads data for compute instruction 355 s. In the static schedule, the compiler places instruction 355 r well in advance of when the data is required, but this may be because that is when the data transfer path is available or perhaps the data was transferred out of the sourcing Tile in order to make room in that Tile.

Execution of the instructions according to the static schedule at run-time may be implemented in different ways. In one approach, the computer program includes an express schedule for the execution of the instructions. Continuing the example of FIG. 3B, the computer program may specify that instruction 355 a executes at cycle c0, instruction 355 b at cycle c1, instruction 355 c at cycle c2, etc. Alternatively, the compiler may fill each instruction stream with NO-OPs to achieve the correct timing. A NO-OP (no operation) is an instruction that occupies a certain number of cycles without other activity. For example, the compiler knows that instruction 355 a will end at cycle c1 and instruction 355 b is supposed to begin at cycle c1. It may fill the space between cycles c0 and c1 with NO-OPs for the T1 C pipeline. The T1 C pipeline then just continuously executes instructions from its queue, and the NO-OPs ensure that instruction 355 b is executed according to the compiler's static schedule. In yet another approach, the static schedule may be implemented by hardware. The T1 C pipeline may just stall on the execution of instruction 355 b until the data from instruction 355 a is ready. The compiler knows that data will be ready at cycle c1 and, therefore, instruction 355 b will execute starting at cycle c1 even though the Tiles are unaware of the static schedule. Regardless of the implementation, for convenience, all of these situations will be described using the phrase “static schedule.” Thus, a statement that the compiler statically schedules the instructions is intended to include all of the above implementations and is not meant to imply that the computer program expressly includes a scheduled time for each instruction.

In order to statically schedule the instructions in a deterministic phase, the compiler typically will know the duration of each instruction (i.e., how long each instruction takes to execute), the capabilities of each Tile (which Tiles can execute which instructions), the topology of data transfer paths to and from Tiles (including between Tiles, and between Tiles and on-chip memory), and the computations required and their dependencies (i.e., the MLN description). With this information, the compiler can schedule unconditional start times for the Tile instructions. Here, unconditional refers to run-time conditions. The execution order of statically scheduled instructions will not change as a result of run-time conditions, branching or dependence on input values. As a result, compute instructions may be scheduled for start times when all of the required data for the computation is known to be available and the compute pipeline is also known to be available. The need for run-time determination of whether data has arrived and whether the compute pipeline is available may be avoided. Analogously, data transfer instructions may be scheduled for start times when the data transfer path is known to be available. The need for circuitry to handle arbitrations, or to check for or resolve contentions and collisions on shared data transfer paths at run-time may be avoided. The need for routing tables and other circuitry to determine routing at run-time may also be avoided. FIGS. 6 and 7 provide further examples of how the compiler converts a description of an MLN to a deterministic phase of statically scheduled instructions executed by the Tiles.

Other aspects include components, devices, systems, improvements, methods, processes, applications, computer readable mediums, and other technologies related to any of the above.

FIGS. 4-5 are more detailed descriptions of an example system that includes an MLA and corresponding compiler. FIG. 4 shows the hardware component and FIG. 5 shows the software development environment.

FIG. 4A is a block diagram of a hardware system including an MLA 470. The MLA 470 includes all the components shown in FIG. 4A, except the off-chip L3 memory 490. Comparing to FIG. 1A, the MLA 470 of FIG. 4A may correspond to the MLA 114 of FIG. 1A, and the memory 490 of FIG. 4A may correspond to the external DRAM of FIG. 1A. The MLA components are implemented on a single die as part of a single chip. The MLA 470 includes one or more mosaics 472A-N. In this example, all of the mosaics are the same. Each mosaic 472 includes a mesh of Tiles 480, an on-chip memory system and a controller 477. In FIG. 4A, the on-chip memory system is a multi-level memory system, which includes a level 1 (L1) memory distributed among the Tiles (see FIG. 4B) and a level 2 (L2) memory 474 shared by the Tiles. If there are multiple mosaics 472, the MLA 470 may include a dedicated interconnect 479 for connecting the different mosaics. Each mosaic also includes an interface 478 to the interconnect 479.

FIG. 4B is a block diagram of a Tile 480 within the MLA. In this example, all the Tiles are the same. Each Tile 480 includes an L1 memory 482. Each Tile 480 also includes a data transfer pipeline that executes instructions for transferring data to and from the L1 memory 482. Here, the Tiles 480 are arranged in a rectangular array as shown in FIG. 4A, with each Tile connected to its adjacent neighbors. Interior Tiles are connected to four adjacent Tiles. Edge Tiles are connected to adjacent Tiles and also to L2 memory 474. In FIG. 4B, the L1 memory 482 may receive data from any of its adjacent Tiles and/or from L2 memory if it is an edge Tile. Similarly, it may transfer data to any of its adjacent Tiles and/or to L2 memory if it is an edge Tile. The data transfer operations are controlled by data transfer instructions received and executed by the Tiles.

Each Tile 480 also includes a compute pipeline 485 for executing computations using data stored in the L1 memory 482. The L1 memory acts as software-configurable registers for the compute pipeline 485. The compute pipeline 485 includes matrix multiplication circuitry 486, such as a systolic array, and circuitry for implementing different types of operators 487. The computations are controlled by compute instructions received and executed by the Tiles.

In this particular example, all of the data transfer instructions and compute instructions executed by the Tiles are statically scheduled. These instructions include data transfer between L1 memories in different Tiles, and data transfer between L1 memory and L2 memory. Data transfer instructions may specify one hop at a time (e.g., transfer data to the east neighbor Tile) or may specify destination and path through intermediate Tiles (e.g., transfer data to Tile (5,5) using path east-east-north-north-east). The instructions also include matrix multiplies performed by the Tiles and operators applied by the Tiles. These operations do not require very many different instructions to implement, so the overall instruction set may be fairly small, for example not more than 20 instructions, or not more than 50 instructions.

The L3 memory 490 is off-chip. In this example, the L1 and L2 memories are implemented as on-chip SRAM and the L3 memory is implemented as DRAM (flash memory and SSD drives are other alternatives). Because the L1 and L2 memories are implemented as SRAM, the data transfers between L1 memories or between L1 and L2 memories have deterministic timing, so these data transfer instructions can be statically scheduled by the compiler. However, data transfer from off-chip DRAM is more unpredictable in timing. As a result, these instructions are non-deterministic in nature and they are executed by the microcontroller 477. Therefore, they are executed in one of the non-deterministic phases and they are not statically scheduled.

In one approach, the instructions in the computer program and the data required for computation (e.g., input, weights, biases, parameters for operators) are initially loaded into L3 memory 480. From time to time, instructions and associated data are transferred from L3 memory into L1/L2 memory during a non-deterministic phase since the timing of data transfers from DRAM is not deterministic. Once these instructions and data are loaded into L1/L2 memory, the computer program enters a corresponding deterministic phase in which the Tiles execute the loaded instructions according to a static schedule. The non-deterministic and deterministic phases may occur concurrently. For example, data may be continuously streamed into the L1/L2 memory during the non-deterministic phase, with the corresponding statically scheduled instructions from the deterministic phase consuming that data. In one approach, the Tiles execute only statically scheduled instructions, and all non-statically scheduled instructions are executed by processing elements outside the Tile mesh, for example, the microcontroller 477.

SRAM has predictable timing so implementing the L1 and L2 memories as SRAM allows the compiler to statically schedule data transfers from those memories into the Tiles for computation. However, there is a limit to the amount of SRAM that may be implemented on a die. In order to increase the effective size of SRAM, a virtual SRAM approach may be used. In one approach, the compute instructions that consume certain data are not fetched into the Tiles until after the corresponding data have been transferred from DRAM (L3 memory) to SRAM (L1/L2 memory). This guarantees that the compute instructions will not be executed by the Tiles before the data is available. All data effectively will appear as if it is transferred to the Tiles from SRAM for computation, even if all of the data would not fit into the available SRAM.

L2 memory may also be used to temporarily store interim values that are too voluminous to store in L1 memory. For example, a layer K of the MLN may produce a large amount of data at its output, to be used as input to the next layer K+1. The layer K output may be stored in L2 memory and then retrieved from L2 memory as needed for the next layer's computations. This may be implemented using a ping pong buffer approach when multiple input samples are processed as a pipeline. The L2 memory is divided into two regions A and B. When a first input sample is processed, the layer K output is stored in region A of the L2 memory. The computations for layer K+1 retrieve the stored values from region A. At the same time, the second input sample is processed and the layer K output is stored in region B of the L2 memory. The two regions then alternate, with the Tiles implementing layer K storing to one region while the Tiles implementing layer K+1 read from the other region. The synchronization is implemented by the static scheduling. The compiler knows when regions A/B will be ready and the instructions to implement layer K+1 will execute after that time. No synchronization primitives are needed.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a software development environment including an ML compiler 520. In this example, the software development environment also includes a model optimizer 530. The model optimizer 530 receives a description of the MLN 500 and produces an optimized graph 535 of the MLN. It may apply optimizations such as quantization 531, pruning 532 and/or compression 533. Quantization 531 reduces the resolution of calculated values. For example, floating point values may be quantized to a certain number of bits and then integer math used instead of floating point math. This reduces the complexity and power consumed by the Tiles. Pruning 532 removes parts of the MLN that do not contribute significantly to the overall results. For example, if certain weights are zero or close to zero, those weighted interconnects may be pruned. Finally, because MLNs contain a large amount of data, compression may be used successfully to reduce data transfer bandwidths.

The resulting optimized description 535 of the MLN may be expressed as a graph, in which the nodes of the graph represent nodes in the MLN and the edges of the graph represent the weighted interconnects. The compiler 520 receives the optimized graph 535 and produces the resulting computer program 550. The compiler 520 may perform operations including static scheduling 522, PPA (power performance area) optimizations 524, graph optimizations 526 and/or partitioning 528. Static scheduling 522 of the appropriate instructions was described above.

PPA optimization 524 includes different optimizations of the computer program 550. For example, the allocation of MLN computations to Tiles may be optimized to reduce power consumption, to increase performance (such as reducing latency or increasing throughput) and/or to reduce area (e.g., number of Tiles used). Examples of this are described in FIG. 6 .

For a given graph representation of an MLN, the number of computations required to execute the MLN is fixed. As a result, in one approach, the compiler may optimize to increase the utilization of compute resources in the Tiles—to keep the compute pipelines as busy as possible. However, for a Tile to execute a computation, the data for that computation must be available. This means that any prior computations must be completed and that those results must be transferred to the Tile doing the next computation. Thus, rather than focusing on computations, the compiler may optimize with respect to data transfer to reduce the wait times of computations. It may also allocate computations to Tiles in order to reduce data transfers between Tiles in the same mesh, to reduce data transfers from outside the MLA and/or to reduce data transfers that cross the boundary of the mesh (e.g., reducing data transfers between L1 and L2 memory and trying to keep all data in L1 memory).

The compiler 520 may also optimize 524 the computer program 550, subject to constraints on power, performance, area and/or any of the quantities described above. Graph optimization 526 includes analysis of the graph representing the MLN to prune, merge or quantize links, parameters, values, and layers to achieve better performance. Partitioning 528 concerns mapping the computations in the MLN to an implementation on the MLA. This includes determining which computations are allocated to which Tiles and how data flows through the mesh of Tiles during computation. If there are multiple mosaics, it also includes determining which computations are allocated to which mosaics.

The resulting computer program 550 may be loaded into memory for execution on a machine learning accelerator 570. For example, one possible application is object detection. In this case, the inputs are images captured by a video camera. The MLN 500 has been trained to identify certain objects in the video images. The computer program 550 implementing the MLN is loaded onto memory that is accessible by the MLA 570, which is implemented as a chip inside the camera. This way, images captured by the video camera may be immediately analyzed by the computer program 550 running on the MLA 570.

In addition to the MLA 570, the computer program 550 or parts of it may be run on a software simulator 536 and/or hardware emulator 538 (including FPGAs configured as MLAs). These may be used for product development, debugging and/or prototyping. For some purposes, a full simulation or emulation is not necessary. For example, to check that there are no collisions or conflicts between statically scheduled instructions, only the flow of data may be simulated or emulated. It is not necessary to compute actual values.

FIGS. 6A-6C illustrate three different computer programs for implementing a portion of an MLN (a subnet) on a set of Tiles. Each example implements the subnet Y=F(W1X1+W2X2+W3X3+W4X4)  (2) where Xn are matrices computed by prior nodes, Wn are corresponding weights, and F( ) is a non-linear operator. Pn are intermediate products. The implementation in FIG. 6A utilizes a low number of Tiles, the implementation in FIG. 6B has low latency, and the implementation in FIG. 6C has high throughput. In all of these figures, each row shows the instructions executed by a different Tile. Each column shows a different time period, where time is designated in cycles C. For purposes of this example, matrix multiplications are assumed to take 8 cycles, Tile to Tile transfers take 2 cycles, and all other instructions take 4 cycles.

In FIG. 6A, the compiler creates a computer program in which all of the instructions are executed by a single Tile 1. In cycles 1-4, Tile 1 loads the data for matrices W1 and X1 into its local memory (e.g., L1 memory). In cycles 5-12, Tile 1 executes the instruction to matrix multiply W1 times X1 and the result is stored in local memory for Tile 1. In cycles 13-24, Tile 1 repeats this process for W2 and X2. In cycles 25-28, Tile 1 adds the two partial products P1 and P2. This process repeats in cycles 29-60, at which point Tile 1 has computed the sum of all the matrix multiplications Wn times Xn. In cycles 61-64, Tile 1 executes the instruction to apply the nonlinear operator F. In cycles 65-68, the result Y is stored. Only one Tile is used to complete the computation, but the computation takes 68 cycles to complete.

In FIG. 6B, the computer program calculates Y with minimum latency, completing the computation in 32 cycles. In cycles 1-12, the partial products of Wn times Xn are computed for all of the n, using four separate Tiles. These partial products are then summed, but this requires some Tile-to-Tile data transfer. In cycles 13-14, the partial product P1 is transferred from Tile 1 to Tile 2. This is indicated by the Move command for Tile 1. [P1 available] for Tile 2 indicates that Tile 2 receives P1 as a result of the Move command executed by Tile 1.P1 is then summed with P2 by Tile 2 in cycles 15-18. In parallel during the same cycles, Tiles 3 and 4 sum P3+P4. This repeated in cycles 19-24 to sum the two partial sums P5+P6. Tile 4 applies the operator F( ) and then stores the result in cycles 25-32. The additional Tiles allow for hardware parallelism, particularly in computing the matrix multiplies. This shortens the total computation time from 68 cycles to 32 cycles.

In FIG. 6C, the computer program calculates Y in a manner that takes advantage of the hardware parallelism of FIG. 6B, but with higher throughput. Each Tile is responsible for one computation, with the result then transferred to other Tiles to perform other computations. Cycles 1-12 are the same as in FIG. 6B. Tiles 1-4 compute the partial products of Wn times Xn. However, these partial products P1-P4 are then transferred to Tiles 5-6, which sum P1+P2 and P3+P4, respectively, in cycles 13-18. These results are transferred to Tile 7, which sums them in cycles 19-24. The total sum P7 is transferred to Tile 8, which applies the operator F( ) in cycles 25-30. The overall computation takes somewhat longer than FIG. 6B (34 cycles versus 32 cycles) because this implementation has an extra Tile-to-Tile data transfer. However, a new input sample may be started in Tiles 1-4 after cycle 14, whereas a new input sample may not be started in Tiles 1-4 of FIG. 6B until after cycle 32.

FIG. 6 provided different examples of how a particular MLN subnet may be allocated to Tiles. FIGS. 7A and 7B illustrate partitioning the mesh of Tiles to different subnets. In FIG. 7A, the MLA includes a 6×6 mesh (element 780 in FIG. 7A) of Tiles. From time t0 to t1, the mesh 780 is utilized to implement two different MLNs: MLN A and MLN B. The Tiles are divided into three partitions 782A, 782B1 and 782B2. Partition 782A implements MLN A, partition 782B1 implements the first 10 layers of MLN B, and partition 782B2 implements the remaining 15 layers of MLN B. MLN B may be partitioned in this manner because some off-Tile operations may be required between layers 10 and 11. Maybe the output of layer 10 requires a computation that is performed off-Tile in a non-deterministic manner, or maybe layers 11-25 require data that cannot be loaded in a manner consistent with the static scheduling of layers 1-10. After time t1, the mesh 780 continues to implement MLN B using partition 782A, but MLN A is replaced by MLNs C and D using partitions 782C and 782D respectively.

FIG. 7A shows a progression over time. The front diagram shows the partitioning at an earlier time and the subsequent diagrams show the partitioning at later times. The times are indicated to the lower right of the diagrams. At time t0, the mesh is partitioned so that the bottom 2×6 Tiles implement MLN A, the upper left 4×3 Tiles implement MLN B layers 1-10, and the upper right 4×3 Tiles implement MLN B layers 11-25. At time t1, MLN B is no longer required and is replaced by MLNs C and D. The upper left 4×2 Tiles now implement MLN C, and the upper right 4×4 Tiles now implement MLN D.

Note that each of these partitions may run deterministic and non-deterministic phases separately from each other. Partition 782A implements MLN A, which is independent of MLN B implemented by partitions 782B1 and 782B2. Thus, partition 782A may run separately from the other two partitions. At time t1, partition 782A may continue to run, unaffected by the change from MLN B to MLNs C and D.

FIG. 7B illustrates deterministic and non-deterministic phases for partitions 782B1 and 782B2. The format is similar to FIG. 3B. Each row represents different phases of instructions. The white regions of each row denote the execution of instructions and the hashed regions indicate idling. Non-deterministic phases are indicated by breaks in the rectangles. From top to bottom, the rows are the following. The top row has instructions to load data for the computations of layers 1-10 from DRAM into the MLA. This data will be consumed by Tile partition 782B1. Referring to FIG. 4A, this is performed by the controller 477 and these phases 755 are non-deterministic because they are loads from DRAM. The second row has the deterministic phases 756 of statically scheduled Tile instructions that implement the computations for layers 1-10. Similarly, the fourth row has non-deterministic phases 758 for loading data for the computation of layers 11-25, and the bottom row has the deterministic phases 759 of statically scheduled Tile instructions that implement these computations, respectively. The middle row has other non-deterministic instructions 757. In this example, this includes non-deterministic computations 757 a-c that occur outside the MLA, and instructions 757 d to repartition the MLA.

The suffixes indicate different input samples. The phases that end in -a apply the MLN to one input sample, the phases that end in -b apply the MLN to the next input sample, etc. The arrows indicate dependencies. Consider first input sample a. A controller loads 755 a the relevant data (input values, weights, biases, operator parameters) from DRAM into the MLA memory. After this is completed, the Tiles 782B1 may perform their computations 756 a using this data. The Tile output is transferred off-chip for a computation 757 a that is not performed by the Tiles. In the meantime, the controller loads 758 a the relevant data for layers 11-25. When data from both non-deterministic phases 757 a and 758 a are available, Tile partition 782B2 performs its computations 759 a. The Tile computations within each phase 756 a and 759 a are statically scheduled within their respective non-deterministic phases, but the time between phases 756 a and 759 a may vary. The processing of input samples b and c have the same dependencies and general flow.

At some point (time t1 in FIG. 7A), the controller ends execution of MLN B and starts execution of MLNs C and D. The compiler has provided different schedules with different partitions of the Tiles as partition 782C for MLN C and partition 782D for MLN D. This is phase 757 d. The process then continues with each of the active partitions 782A, C, D execution instructions to implement their respective MLNs.

The approach based on static scheduling described above is not restricted to the examples described above. For example, different network topologies of Tiles may be used. Other Tile meshes may also be statically scheduled, so long as the time required to execute computations and to transfer data between Tiles is deterministic and may be determined at compile time. For additional examples, see U.S. application Ser. No. 16/840,216, “Machine Learning Network Implemented by Statically Scheduled Instructions, with Compiler,” which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Although the detailed description contains many specifics, these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention but merely as illustrating different examples. It should be appreciated that the scope of the disclosure includes other embodiments not discussed in detail above. Various other modifications, changes and variations which will be apparent to those skilled in the art may be made in the arrangement, operation and details of the method and apparatus disclosed herein without departing from the spirit and scope as defined in the appended claims. Therefore, the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents. 

What is claimed is:
 1. An integrated circuit product comprising, on a single semiconductor die: a plurality of processor cores that each execute instructions to perform computations, the plurality of processor cores comprising a machine learning accelerator (MLA) that performs computations suitable for implementing a machine learning network, said computations including matrix multiplication; and a network-on-chip coupled to the plurality of processor cores for transferring data to and from the processor cores; wherein the MLA comprises: a plurality of interconnected processing elements configured to execute instructions that perform the computations for implementing the machine learning network; and a memory coupled to the plurality of interconnected processing elements; wherein the processing elements are configured to execute one or more deterministic phases of instructions, each deterministic phase utilizes multiple processing elements, the processing elements are configured to execute instructions in the same deterministic phase in synchronization and the instructions within each deterministic phase are statically scheduled relative to the other instructions in the same deterministic phase, the execution order of the statically scheduled instructions does not depend on run-time conditions, branching or values of inputs to the instructions, and the statically scheduled instructions implement the computations in the machine learning network using data stored in the memory.
 2. The integrated circuit product of claim 1 wherein the deterministic phase also includes statically scheduled instructions executed by the processing elements for data transfer between different processing elements and for data transfer between processing elements and the memory.
 3. The integrated circuit product of claim 1 wherein the plurality of processor cores further comprises at least one general purpose processor and at least one application-specific processor.
 4. The integrated circuit product of claim 3 wherein the application-specific processor is a computer vision processor.
 5. The integrated circuit product of claim 1 wherein the plurality of processor cores utilize at least three different instruction sets.
 6. The integrated circuit product of claim 1 further comprising: a security module that provides encryption and/or decryption.
 7. The integrated circuit product of claim 6 wherein the security module secures parameters of the machine learning network.
 8. The integrated circuit product of claim 6 wherein the security module digitally signs data produced by the integrated circuit product.
 9. The integrated circuit product of claim 6 wherein the security module comprises a trusted computing module.
 10. The integrated circuit product of claim 1 further comprising: a module that provides a device stamp, a time stamp and/or a geolocation stamp for data produced by the integrated circuit product.
 11. The integrated circuit product of claim 1 further comprising: a safety module that provides for safe failure of the integrated circuit product.
 12. The integrated circuit product of claim 1 wherein the MLA has a reduced power mode in which parameters of the machine learning network have been loaded to memory accessible by the MLA, so that the MLA may implement the machine learning network upon leaving the reduced power mode without having to load the parameters to the memory.
 13. The integrated circuit product of claim 1 further comprising: a network bypass coupled to the MLA, wherein the MLA receives data directly via the network bypass and not through the network-on-chip.
 14. A system for implementing a task that uses a machine learning network, the system comprising: an integrated circuit product comprising, on a single semiconductor die: a plurality of processor cores that each execute instructions to perform computations, the plurality of processor cores comprising a machine learning accelerator (MLA) that includes a plurality of interconnected Tiles; and a network-on-chip coupled to the plurality of processor cores for transferring data to and from the processor cores; and a compiler that receives a description of the task which includes source code and a description of the machine learning network and that generates an executable computer program that implements the task on the processor cores of the integrated circuit product; wherein the executable computer program comprises statically scheduled Tile instructions for execution by the Tiles and executable code for execution by other processor cores, the Tile instructions implement computations in the machine learning network including matrix multiplication, the compiler allocates computations in the machine learning network to Tiles that execute the Tile instructions for those computations based on the description of the machine learning network, and the execution order of the statically scheduled Tile instructions does not depend on run-time conditions, branching or values of inputs to the Tile instructions.
 15. The system of claim 14 wherein the compiler generates different versions of the executable computer program optimized for different purposes, and the version executed by the integrated circuit product is dynamically selected at run-time.
 16. The system of claim 14 wherein the compiler partitions the Tile instructions into one or more deterministic phases each utilizing multiple Tiles, and the compiler statically schedules the Tile instructions within each deterministic phase relative to the other Tile instructions in the same deterministic phase.
 17. The system of claim 14 wherein the executable computer program generated by the compiler comprises a pipeline of operations performed by the processor cores, and the compiler allocates which operations are performed by which processor cores.
 18. The system of claim 14 wherein the executable computer program generated by the compiler comprises a main thread that provides control over instruction threads executed by each of the processor cores.
 19. The system of claim 14 wherein the executable computer program generated by the compiler comprises separate instruction threads executed by each of the processor cores, and overall control of the instruction threads is provided within the instruction threads themselves. 